Because, like many Texans, I am an amateur expert on Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove), people often ask me which quotes from the miniseries I think are the most popular. If I were wise, I would simply answer, “Any one of a hundred quotes could be someone’s number one,” and leave it at that. But I have never let a lack of wisdom stop me. I cannot resist the challenge of making a list. I know this is a delicate matter. This is sacred ground. However, the list I am about to share is not merely my opinion. I have data on my side—feedback from a popular Facebook page dedicated to Lonesome Dove. From that page, I was able to compile a ranking of the most popular quotes or passages from the miniseries. I am sharing 12 of them, David Letterman-style.
Number 12 comes at the end of the miniseries. Woodrow Call has just buried Gus and erected a headstone made from the old Hat Creek Cattle Company sign. As he looks at the headstone, he says, “I guess this’ll teach me to be careful about what I promise in the future.”
Number 11 is classic Gus McCrae. When the boys seem a little shocked by his, shall we say, manly appetites, he says, “What’s good for me may not necessarily be good for the weak-minded.”
Number 10 takes place just after Gus deals cards with Lorena and she accuses him of cheating. He says, “Well, I wouldn’t say I did, and I wouldn’t say I didn’t, but I will say this: A man who wouldn’t cheat for a poke don’t want one bad enough. Come on, darling.”
Number 9: As Gus prepares to attack Blue Duck’s camp to rescue Lorena, he says, “They don’t know it, but the wrath of the Lord is about to descend on them as soon as the sun goes down.”
Number 8 is spoken the following morning. Gus finds July Johnson burying his stepson Joe, his deputy Roscoe, and the girl Janey. July is distraught, blaming himself and saying he should have stayed with them. Gus tells him, “Yesterday’s gone; we can’t get it back.”
Number 7 comes during one of the many occasions when Gus shows his irritation with Woodrow Call. Gus says, “By God, Woodrow, you just don’t ever get the point, do you? I ain’t talking about dying, I’m talking about living.”
The sixth most popular quote underscores the scene in which Jake Spoon is to be hanged alongside the murderous horse thieves he joined. Jake begs for mercy, but Gus has little sympathy. He says, “You know how it works, Jake. You ride with an outlaw, you die with an outlaw. I’m sorry you crossed the line.”
Number 5 comes from the scene in a San Antonio bar that Gus, Call, and Jake Spoon frequented years earlier, during their glory days as celebrated Rangers. That scene has several great lines, so I decided to count them as a single quote. The bartender who insults Gus and Call gets his nose broken when Gus slams his face into the oak bar. Gus tells him, “Now, besides the whiskey, I think we’ll require a little respect. Now, if you’ll kindly turn around [shoving the bartender’s bloodied face toward a photograph of the younger Gus, Call, and Jake displayed behind the bar], you can see what we looked like when we were younger and the people around here wanted to make us senators. We didn’t put up with dawdling service then, and as you can see, we still don’t.” As they leave, Woodrow tells Gus he is lucky they did not throw him in jail. Gus replies, “It ain’t much of a crime, whacking a surly bartender.”
Number 4 is a poignant line Gus delivers as he lies on his deathbed: “It’s been quite a party, ain’t it?”
Number 3 is a tie. They were so close that I could not separate them. The first comes near the beginning of the film, back in Lonesome Dove, when Bol suggests that Gus may be too old for romance, and Gus puts him in his place. He says, “The older the violin, the sweeter the music.” Shortly after this scene comes Call’s advice to Newt. Call hands him his first pistol and says, “Here. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.”
At number 2, Gus lays out a recipe for Lorie’s future happiness. She is obsessed with getting to San Francisco, and he wants her to understand that achieving her dream may not be the only answer: “You know, life in San Francisco is still just life. If you want any one thing too badly, it’s likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life, as I see it, is to learn to like all the little everyday things... like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, or a soft bed, or a glass of buttermilk, or, say... a feisty gentleman like myself.”
I began with Woodrow Call, and I will also end with him at number 1. Although Gus has many of the best lines, Call has the most powerful, most frequently quoted line of all. Call has just beaten a brutish Army scout bloody in defense of young Newt (whom we already know—spoiler alert—is the son Call has never acknowledged, perhaps not even to himself). The townspeople, stunned by Call’s eruption of brutal violence, stand paralyzed with shock. Even Call himself seems astonished by what he has done and unsure why he lost control. As the silence stretches on, Call finally says stiffly, “I hate rude behavior in a man. I won’t tolerate it.”
